Senate report calls for national cancer centre

The World Today - Thursday, 19 October , 2006 12:46:00

Reporter: Alexandra Kirk

ELEANOR HALL: While more than 80 per cent of Australian women who have breast cancer survive, those with ovarian cancer have a poor survival rate. But while breast cancer research has received $35 million of Commonwealth funding over the past 12 years, ovarian cancer has received less than a million.

Today a Senate report has today called for the funding of a National Centre for Gynaecological Cancers and for the development of an early detection test for ovarian cancer.

Liberal Senator Jeannie Ferris, a survivor of ovarian cancer and a member of that inquiry, spoke a short time ago to Alexandra Kirk.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Senator Ferris, given the prevalence of gynaecological cancers, why do you think that it hasn't, they haven't got the attention of, say, breast cancer?

JEANNIE FERRIS: I'm not really sure. I think perhaps it's because women are embarrassed to talk to about these more private cancers. I think, probably in the beginning, people were embarrassed about breast caner too, but we've got some wonderful statistical outcomes now on breast cancer. More than 80 per cent of diagnoses are curable. We want to get the same thing for gynaecological cancers and at the moment for some of them it's less than 40 per cent after five years.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: And in order to do that, do you think that you'll have to find a way to break down this stigmatisation or cloak of silence?

JEANNIE FERRIS: That's why we called the report Breaking the Silence. A number of women came and gave evidence to us about their cancers. They broke their silence. We want to make it much more acceptable in the community to talk about these gynaecological cancers, and I think the best way to do that is to provide a national voice.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: And what do you think the main problems are in raising the profile of gynaecological cancers, and also increasing the survival rate.

JEANNIE FERRIS: Well, the first thing to do in relation to ovarian cancer, which is the most difficult of all of them, is to get an early warning test. That would save the lives of many women who, by the time they report to their doctor, have an advanced form of gynaecological cancer, which in many cases has a poor outcome.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: So similar to the mammogram?

JEANNIE FERRIS: Similar to the mammogram, similar to the pap smear. Some of the evidence that we received suggested that a test could be only eight to ten years away, depending on the amount of money that we are able to spend on the research.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: You've asked for, in this report, asked for the Federal Government to put in about a million dollars of seed money to set up also a National Centre for Gynaecological Cancers, and also for there to be a national voice, as, like the National Breast Cancer Centre.

Considering now that your illness and your treatment's been a public journey, so many in the Government, especially in decision-making places, understand presumably what you went through, what do you rate the chances now of a success in terms of funding?

JEANNIE FERRIS: I think the chances are very good. I think there's been widespread acceptance that in some ways these gynaecological cancers have been the poor sister cancers of women's cancers.

The Federal Government and the previous government since 1994 have put 34.5 million into breast cancer. We are only asking for $1 million over two years to establish this centre. But we believe that in the final outcome that money would be far better used in a national way, than to have a myriad of small organisations now struggling to survive through various forms of fund raising and having a limited amount of national prominence. We think that this would be a far more efficient and effective way to spend the money.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: So is money really the big barrier?

JEANNIE FERRIS: I think money is the big barrier. As with many things, money opens doors and what we want to do is open the doors and get more researchers in, get an early warning test for some of these cancers, and try to improve women's survival rates. Women deserve nothing less.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: And do you think though that if all these things were done, then the survival rate could be the same for gynaecological cancers as, for example, there is currently with breast cancers?

JEANNIE FERRIS: Well remember 10 years ago how poor the outcome was with breast cancer. It was a death sentence in many cases. Now, in some places, it's 87 per cent curable. What a wonderful outcome it would be if this report led to an increased funding for research, which led to an early warning test and the lives of many women being saved.